


little pieces of the nothing that fall

by spunknbite



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Memory Loss, Mistaken Identity, Misunderstandings, Smut, that Derry brand of memory loss is a huge bitch huh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22688212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spunknbite/pseuds/spunknbite
Summary: Eddie shook his head, lips quirking upwards in a confused half-smile that Richie was immediately drawn to. “You seem stupid familiar,” he said with a laugh.“I don’t think we know each other,” Richie replied, then added, like the moron he was, “I’d remember you.”This guy wasn’t the sort you forgot.*Or, the one where it's 1998 and Richie sits down at the bar next to an asshole with a Palm Pilot.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 108
Kudos: 817
Collections: IT ❀ Valentine's Day Fic Exchange





	little pieces of the nothing that fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mere_Mortifer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mere_Mortifer/gifts).



> For the lovely Mortifer -- thank you so much for organizing this exchange and spurring us all to put forth lots of wonderful fics to enjoy. Happy Valentine's and I hope you like my little gift to you!

_Los Angeles, 1998_

“Phil, you can’t do this to me — ”

“Dave’s set ran long, Tozier, and there’s no way I’m bumping Miles. Nothing I can do.”

“Tonight’s the first Friday night slot I’ve had in months, man. I’m fucking dying on Wednesdays. I need this.”

“You’re dying on Wednesdays because your material is stale.”

“My shit is — ”

“Your shit is shit, Rich. Get yourself a drink then go home. I’ll see you Wednesday.”

_Well fuck you too, Phil._

He schlepped out of the dim office and to the employee staircase, past the disused dressing rooms and across the sticky wooden floorboards of backstage. On the other side of the heavy velvet curtain that separated the stage, Miles was halfway through his L.A. traffic bit, going on about rush hour on the 405, and the crowd was eating it the fuck up, the assholes. _And Phil says my shit is stale. L.A. traffic, how original._

The stairs groaned as Richie climbed them to the main floor bar; he jumped over the loose step third from the top, and pulled open the paint-chipped door labelled _employees only_ , hands in his pockets, tail between his legs, as he trudged to the bar.

_Fuck this place._

The Comedy Attic. _See, it’s funny because the stage is in the basement_ , Richie thought with an eye roll while stepping over a spilled drink the waitresses hadn’t cleaned up yet. Downstairs, a seating capacity of one hundred, never full. Upstairs, exposed brick interiors that might have been considered chic if they weren’t crumbling, and a reclaimed-wood bar with a flickering neon sign overhead that read _unhappy hour._ The bar paid for the stage below; Friday-full now, mostly locals, but with a small helping of gaudily dressed, presumably midwestern tourists tipped off to the reasonably priced mixed drinks and the shockingly decent live band, for what Phil was paying them anyway. Richie elbowed through a group of bandana-top wearing, Jennifer Aniston-types to find the only free stool at the wrap-around bar, beside a man sitting alone with a beer, his face deep in a Palm Pilot as he typed something out with a stylus. _Jackass_.

At least Richie could see the band from here, despite the crowded tables in front. The lead, Jeff — the sort of douchebag Richie got on well with — he was strumming a guitar lazily and talking into a mic stand, “You all know Brad, right?” He gestured to the shaggy-haired drummer behind him. “Well Brad here says his girlfriend — where’s Stacey?” A drunken woo from the Jennifer Aniston girls. “Hey Stacey. Brad says Stacey loves that new song from — what are they called? Goo Goo Dolls? — that’s a dumb name. So here, Stacey this is for you, stupid band name and all. _Slide_.” And Jeff’s directionless strumming shifted into the deceptively upbeat opening chords.

“Bourbon?” Gina asked from behind the bar, glass already in hand as she reached for the Jim Beam.

“Maker’s Mark instead. This is on Phil tonight.”

“Fuck Phil,” she answered in solidarity, passing him a double of the good stuff.

“Cheers,” and Richie took a long drink as Gina was summoned to the other side of the bar.

He really _needed_ a good Friday set. Or rather, he needed a fucking sign, any sign, that there was some reason to go on with this stupid, impractical, fundamentally unrealistic idea of what his life was supposed to be — and some laughs tonight would have at least been _something_ to indicate that comedian wasn’t a completely impossible job title — because after moving across the country with nothing except a beat-up Honda and more ambition than talent, and then subsequently dropping out of college to pursue _this_ full-time, well, Richie needed a win.

Because it had been a while since he had one, if he was being honest with himself.

He had a knack for it, he’d been told. And told not just by anyone but by people who knew what they were talking about. Talent scouts for the late-night shows. Agents. A handful of legitimately successful comedians. He had a good stage presence, apparently; a natural cadence that lent itself to long-form stand-up; a conversational delivery that could elevate some of the drier bits, the necessary set-ups between the jokes. It was the writing that was the problem. The writing required an amount of candidness that Richie just — well, he couldn’t. Obviously. 

He sipped his bourbon.

_(Enter stage left. Friendly wave, relaxed smile. I’m not nervous and approval-seeking, really I’m not.) So, I’m cruising at this bar last weekend. (Launch straight into the first bit; a cold open, no warm-up jokes; exploit the shock value.) You know what that is, right? (Get the audience on the inside of the joke, let them experience the story with you; writing 101.) Anonymous dudes picking up other anonymous dudes for equally anonymous sex. (Said shamelessly. If you’re going to talk about it, fucking own it.) It’s like the witness protection program of gay sex; no one knows your name or your address or if you’re formerly wanted for international mob ties. (Hold for brief laughter; a soft set-up joke to ease the tension created by the subject matter.) Are you happy to see me or are those your extradition papers in your pocket?_

_(The rest of the set-up involves a fish in a barrel metaphor, except all the fish are shooting at each other.) Everyone is there to get laid, there’s no fucking sport in it. They’re a bunch of jacked-up, gym-toned goldfish with berettas. (And that segues nicely into a comparison between cruising and picking up chicks; that’s ripe for material.) Gays have it way harder, generally. You know, the discrimination and the marriage inequality and the homophobia and don’t get me fucking started on the internalized shit, but in this one avenue, we’ve got it fucking made. Getting a guy into bed is way easier than getting a woman there. (Something something guys think with their dicks, something something imagine if there’s two dicks involved. And how does the bit end? Honestly. Self-depreciating, always. A story of being rejected by some slutty dude, proving me the exception to the easy pick-up rule. Subvert the audience’s expectations. Laughs all around.) Goodnight, folks. You’ve been great._

_Needs work but at least it isn’t stale._

Richie took another drink and didn’t revise the bit again. _Fucking career suicide is what it is._

_Tap tap tap._

The idiot next to him was still striking the screen of the Palm Pilot with that damn stylus, so loudly that it was audible even above Jeff’s pitchy chorus. The incessant scratch of a plastic nub over a glass screen reverberated through the small space between them as Palm Pilot Guy huffed and then typed some more.

There was no way Palm Pilot Guy was a local, Richie thought. Stuffy suit, well-tailored but a bit out-of-date — like the sort of thing your mother would pick out — and if Richie noticed that, well, it must be _bad_ because Richie’s sense of fashion didn’t extend far past Hawaiian shirts, slogan t-shirts, and hoodies. Styled and side-parted hair, clean-shaven; he wasn’t the usual UCLA pre-drinker or middling thirty-something looking for a casual evening that didn’t require a reservation. No, Palm Pilot Guy looked like an out-of-towner here for a job interview, maybe? Or a high school reunion? No, too young. Maybe a bachelor party, although he was alone, so probably not; plus who would invite _this guy_ anyway? The crisp shirt beneath the suit said _I’m trying to make a good impression_ , but the force behind the increasingly hostile _tap tap taps_ said _I’m incapable of good impressions, because I’m a crazy person._

_Tap tap tap._

“Writing the great American novel?” Richie asked, setting down his glass.

Palm Pilot Guy was still typing.

“Or is it a screenplay? Because I can tell you, this is the wrong bar to try and hype something. No one worth anything is here.”

“Hm?” Palm Pilot Guy turned his head toward Richie, but his eyes were still locked to the screen as he jabbed the stylus into the keyboard as if trying to physically dislodge appointments from his digital calendar. “Sorry, did you say something?” He finally pulled his eyes away from the screen long enough to look over at Richie.

And _Jesus Christ_ , Palm Pilot Guy’s eyes were — they were something fucking special, Richie thought. A brown that was whiskey-deep, flecked with amber streaks that made Richie think briefly of childhood summers he hardly remembered. Those eyes were a midnight sky strewn with the tails of shooting stars, something he must have watched at some point, surely, on some warm August night. The hum of cicadas. A breeze off of water. Rocks under his back. A laugh that wasn’t his but he knew as well as his own. And shooting stars overhead, the Perseids. 

_Fuck, Tozier. Where the fuck did that come from?_

He could almost hear the cicadas, an electric buzz like the sound off the wind turbine farms near Palm Springs.

Hell, he wasn’t one of those sappy assholes that romanticized shit, but this guy’s eyes were — fuck, they just _were_. They were evocative, and they deserved a better description than the sort Richie was capable of giving, that was for sure.

_Get it together._

“Asked whether you were writing the great American novel. Thought people used computers for the level of word processing you’re doing.”

Palm Pilot Guy was looking back at him with knitted eyebrows, titular Palm Pilot and stylus discarded haphazardly on the bar with a careless toss. “Do I know you?”

_Do you?_

“I don’t think so,” he answered, swallowing, searching features for a familiarity that wasn’t there. “I’m Richie.”

“Edward.”

Palm Pilot Guy — Edward, apparently — was still appraising him, and Richie shifted on his barstool, suddenly hot around the neck of his hoodie. He cleared his throat that threatened to crack. “You come here before? Maybe you’ve seen me — ”

“No, I’m only in for a few days. New York,” he nodded his head to the door as if New York was on the other side of it. “You ever go to Columbia?”

“Nah, man.”

Edward shook his head, lips quirking upwards in a confused half-smile that Richie was immediately drawn to. “You seem stupid familiar,” he said with a laugh.

“I don’t think we know each other,” Richie replied, then added, like the moron he was, “I’d remember you.”

This guy wasn’t the sort you forgot.

The angles of his face were graceful but decidedly masculine; strong jaw and sharp cheekbones, the type of prominent nose that Richie was crazy for, and fucking hell those eyes — the sort you could get lost in, Richie thought like some lovesick asshole, the sort people smarter and more eloquent than himself wrote poetry and songs about. Bad suit notwithstanding, this guy wasn’t forgettable, because if Richie had ever seen him before, he was sure he would have spent the intervening years chasing him down.

And if Edward looked taken back by Richie’s comment — and he did, an eyebrow arching quizzically up — it was only for a quick moment before his smile relaxed again.

“You running for the senate, Edward?” Richie asked, wanting to see him smile more.

“What?”

“What kind of a person calls himself Edward? At your age?”

A pause, an expression that Richie immediately recognized as put-on displeasure, a show of annoyance that masked a coy smile beneath, and how Richie could read all that in a stranger, he wasn’t sure. But still he saw through the feigned exasperation to the humor in those remarkable eyes, like he’d seen the micro-movements in his face so many times before that he could predict them from afar.

“...me.” 

“Okay there, Eddie.”

That name — saying it out loud, feeling it spill from his mouth, the touch of the tip of his tongue to his hard palate — that name sparked something like an electric shock in his mind, a whip-sharp crackle like lightning, like the moment a stray bolt finds a route to the ground and all of that energy is directed somewhere _finally_. It was almost violent in its crash, in the ricochet that travelled up Richie’s spine at feeling those syllables slip past his lips, hearing how _right_ they sounded there.

“So you come here a lot then?” Eddie might have said, but Richie wasn’t sure he heard it.

 _Eddie_.

_Eddie._

_Eddie._

The rightness of it was overwhelming.

_Do I know you? I can’t._

“Sorry, what?” Richie managed, catching onto Eddie’s waiting expression.

“Before, you asked if I’d seen you here,” Eddie said. “So do you come here often?”

“Does that line still actually work for you?” Richie asked innocently.

Eddie smiled mid sip of his beer. “All the time,” he said, that too-familiar glimpse of faux disdain creeping across his face again regardless of his already upturned lips, as if he wanted to be annoyed but couldn’t quite manage it, and Richie tried not to stare, tried not to memorize each crease in his lips.

_Calm down. Don’t go chasing straight guys; it’s always a mistake._

“But yeah, I work here. Sort of,” Richie said eventually. “There’s a comedy club downstairs. I do stand-up once a week.”

“So you’re funny or something?” 

“Only sometimes.” It wasn’t an altogether untrue answer, and Richie couldn’t talk about it now, not when his Friday set had been passed over and the fated-to-be-ever-unfinished cruising bit still sat heavy on his mind, and certainly not to some hot stranger at the bar who was looking at him with eyes that seemed to see into his fucking soul. So Richie did what he was best at, and deflected, “It’s not among my best talents,” he baited.

Eddie bit. “And what would those be?”

_Was Palm Pilot Guy flirting?_

It definitely seemed like he was; a suggestive question cached in small talk, and Richie wanted to follow up with something more overt, but _fuck,_ he was shit at this. _Remember the punchline to the cruising bit? I don’t get the guy at end; I can’t even shoot fish in a barrel, and this place is not a barrel and this guy probably isn’t even a fucking fish._

Thinking Eddie was flirting was just delusional, wishful thinking.

_Those eyes, though._

Richie nodded to the far corner of the bar, past pool tables so old that the felt was peeling, to a collection of old arcade games that Phil was weirdly particular about. “I have high scores on _Frogger, Donkey Kong,_ and _Street Fighter,”_ he said. “Want to go a round?” 

“Never was one for those,” Eddie said, staring off at the machines with a distant sort of look as if he was trying to remember something, to see something just beyond his vision. “I think I sucked at them as a kid?”

“Oh, so you were one of those outdoor kids I’ve heard about? Played sports in the fresh air and sunshine?”

“I mostly remember reading a lot of comic books.”

“I liked X-Men,” Richie offered, straightening his glasses.

“Dude,” Eddie lit up, hands suddenly expressive, “I had Uncanny X-Men #266. The one where Gambit was introduced,” he said, and that shouldn’t have struck a chord, shouldn’t have pinged some forgotten childhood memory, because it was such a _nothing_ detail, but Richie almost felt the crisp paper under his fingers as he turned a page over while someone else’s elbow stuck into his shoulder to a stage-whisper of _read faster, numb nuts._

“Get fucked, no you didn’t.”

Forearms pressed together as Richie had flipped another page and someone — someone Richie couldn’t make out, couldn’t see through the blotted out ink spill that was the interim years — someone had craned over his shoulder to see the page, so close that his breath prickled the back of Richie’s neck, and even though that intimate draft of air was hot, Richie had shivered. 

“No, I’m not fucking with you,” he insisted. “I had it and a bunch of other New Mutants that were worth enough to cover a good chunk of my tuition, but my mom sold them at some yard sale once I moved out,” Eddie said, while Richie silently reeled from some long-ago memory he’d all but forgotten until that moment.

Eddie had leaned in at some point, pivoted in his stool so that he was facing Richie, and Richie must have done the same — _when had that happened?_ — so now their knees brushed against the other’s. Bent conspiratorially close as if sharing a secret, Richie felt a rush of blood and heat to his face when he realized just how near they were.

Eddie smelled like beer and the ambient smoke circulating throughout the room in great whirls above, and something else too — soap; no, an antiseptic or rubbing alcohol, sanitizer, Purell — and the intimacy of that smell was overwhelming. Yeah, it was bleachy and chlorinated, sterile like something out of a hospital or lab, but somehow it also suited him. It fit him in a way Richie couldn’t possibly attest to, and he leaned further into Eddie, into the trace notes of ethyl alcohol that lingered on him.

Richie couldn’t blame their closeness on the noise of the bar. On stage, Jeff had launched into near-shouting punk covers, and somewhere behind them a group of girls were singing along, drunkenly, but still the bar was crowded and their stools were pushed together enough that they could have heard each other even if they weren’t conferred so near that any closer and their foreheads would have been touching.

_Was Eddie flushed?_

“So what brings you to L.A.?” Richie asked, pointedly not leaning away.

_Eddie was definitely flushed._

“Looking at UCLA for my Master’s,” he answered. “Needed to meet some professors and — ” Eddie sighed, shook his head. “It’s boring bullshit, and I’m going to end up staying at Columbia anyway. Just thought I’d see what else was out there.” Eddie shifted and their knees bumped again, and Richie watched as Eddie looked down as if startled by the contact.

“That what you were accosting your Palm Pilot over?” The device sat forgotten on the bar next to two equally abandoned drinks.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, not bothering to look at it. “I just have a lot of final semester stuff, and it’s stressful, you know.” He took a breath and smiled at Richie; it was a tight, resigned sort of expression that Richie could have recognized as his own. “You ever get the feeling that you’re just drifting directionlessly? Like you’re trying and trying and trying to get somewhere, but you don’t even know where the fuck _there_ is supposed to be. Like you’ve got nothing figured out and you’re just, I don’t know, killing time until something significant happens.”

_I get that._

It was the sort of thing you tell a friend, someone trusted and loved, and not just some random dude you only met at a bar a few minutes ago. 

_There’s something here between us, right? Am I fucking crazy? Or do you feel it too? I think you do, the way you’re looking back at me with those eyes that seem to telegraph everything going on in your head. It’s a familiarity; no, not just that, a closeness. Like we’ve done this before, like we’ve done this a lot — sat around and shot the shit and pressed nearer — like we’ve spent so much time together that our rhythms have synced. Is this what chemistry is? I think I know how you move. I think I know how your hands twitch when you’re nervous and that you pace and have problems keeping still, and I shouldn’t know that, I can’t know that, but still it feels like I do, and I’d like to hold your hands when you get like that — like we’re in fucking eighth grade, Jesus Christ — and and and I’m not alone in thinking this, right? Do you know things about me too?_

Richie should have just said: I get that. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing most of the time. I’m winging it. I’m a walking disaster. I need someone, anyone (you), to have my back and tell me that I’m not the complete fuck up that I suspect I am.

Instead, Richie looked into those brown eyes again and saw something — maybe a longing that matched his own — and he said, “You want to get out of here?”

They were so close they could almost be kissing.

Eddie’s eyes flashed up, widened like a deer in the headlights, like some stupid Disney character Richie was sure he must have mocked in childhood. But on Eddie it was endearing, and if Richie wasn’t sure he’d just fucked everything up with one simple question, it would have been almost charming the way his eyebrows shot up and his pupils blew.

Richie waited for it — a slur, a punch, confirmation that he was a delusional moron willing to cling to any attractive, probably straight guy who so much as looked at him — but Eddie’s lower lip dropped, mouth going a little agape, and he actually nodded, voice suddenly hoarse. “Okay,” he said, the nod almost imperceptible. “Okay.”

_Really?_

“My place is sort of far,” Richie whispered, too surprised to fully process the implications of _okay_ , but suddenly aware of just _where_ they were having this conversation, and that Gina was only feet away and that Phil and all the other guys could be anywhere, and that his shitty, necessary reputation hung in the balance. 

Eddie leaned further into Richie’s whisper. “I’m just down the street, but I’m staying with family,” Eddie said. He didn’t need to explain; Richie understood.

There were a few motels around off of Sunset, but fuck that seemed — what? Presumptuous? The whole conversation was presumptuous as hell — it seemed gross though, regardless, like this guy deserved better than some infested, pay by the hour sort of place. Even though he didn’t know this guy, let alone what he did or did not deserve.

“Do you want to see downstairs?” Richie finally asked, feeling beads of sweat collect on his palms.

“The comedy club?”

“There’s some dressing rooms no one uses anymore. They’re — ” _Empty? Out of the way? Equipped with locks on the inside? The perfect place to do whatever it is you want to do, because please know I’ll do whatever it is you want to do?_ “— quiet.”

Eddie surveyed the room like he was assessing the place and the risks involved, and Richie watched as he bit his lower lip just as Richie somehow knew he would, like he’d seen him do that a million times before. Eddie turned back to Richie and said, again, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” and he grabbed his Palm Pilot and stylus off the bar and tucked them into his suit pocket, leaving a bill on the counter for his barely-touched beer.

Off their stools and through the crowd, past the Jennifer Aniston girls and towards the _employees only_ door, and Richie could hear Eddie’s light footsteps behind him even over the music and the chatter and the clinking of glasses, like he knew the vibrations of his footsteps by heart. Richie grabbed the doorknob and dared to look back, and Eddie was hardly a stride behind, sidestepping so Richie could pull the door open for them both.

He wanted to say something — he always wanted to say something, his big fucking mouth never shut up — but his throat was too tight as he stepped down the first few stairs, the old staircase creaking.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t hooked up with random guys before; regardless of the joke, cruising wasn’t _always_ unsuccessful. So why the fuck did he feel so giddy, almost sick, like his thumping heart was going to beat right out of his chest and up his throat?

 _Fuck_ —

The sound of a wooden floorboard shifting underfoot, a panicked inhale, and Eddie landed against Richie’s back, hard, with his full weight. And for a moment they were both going down — Richie skidded down a step and then another— but he managed to brace himself against the concrete wall with a hand on either side of him to keep them both from falling further down the stairs, and Eddie finally caught his balance behind him, his weight easing up off of Richie’s back in a sudden jerk.

“Fuck, you okay?” Richie asked as Eddie straightened up, wobbling as he stepped back onto the solid landing of the stair above. Richie tingled at the loss of contact as he pulled away.

“Sorry, the step is loose or something — ”

“Shit, sorry. I knew that. I should have said something. I wasn’t thinking.”

Richie turned around and they were nose to nose, their height difference erased by the stairs. This close, Eddie’s breath warmed his mouth, and the fall was already forgotten as Eddie closed the little distance that remained between them.

The kiss was somewhere between hesitant and urgent, and Richie knew he shouldn’t feel this desperate for just some hook-up, some nothing guy he should forget in a week, but _fucking hell_ , he felt like he was on fire and Eddie was water, a cool balm to cover his skin with. Necessary. Life-sustaining. Like he’d wanted this his entire life and only just realized it now.

Eddie’s mouth was wet against his, open already and pressing against him with a sort of needy energy that Richie had never felt in anyone else before. He was all yeasty beer and minty toothpaste and that lingering scent of sanitizer, and their teeth clacked briefly as Richie tilted his head to one side to try and move closer. 

They were as close as they could manage in the space, slotted against each other on the stairs so that Eddie’s leg slid in between Richie’s, but it wasn’t near enough, not by a long shot, and Richie suspected that it would never be enough, that regardless of what happened here or after, he would never get enough of this guy, as stupid and thoroughly not-him as that seemed.

Richie’s hands found his waist and slipped inside the length of his unbuttoned jacket so that he could wrap his arms around Eddie’s torso, firm and reassuring to Richie’s fluttering uncertainty. He was all hard lines beneath his shirt, Richie could tell — pronounced, cut hip bones and a stomach that could only mean he had a gym membership — and Eddie responded by resting his arms on Richie’s shoulders, pulling him impossibly closer as their teeth mashed again.

It was awkward and unskilled; clumsy, unsure tongues and too-eager teeth, and yet nothing could have been as perfect as the small, hitched sigh Eddie made as he leaned fully into him, bodies flush together. _Fuck_ , he wanted to touch him, to never stop touching him, to just be lost in Eddie’s body like this forever. Eddie’s knee rubbed up between Richie’s legs, and Richie was hard already, aching at only a kiss, craving more that the thrust of Eddie’s hips promised.

But —

Upstairs, the ambient noise of the bar still filtered through the door. Downstairs, a shuffle that could have been footsteps, and Richie jumped back, startled, almost tripping, and he waited until the sound passed with his arms still around Eddie.

They were too exposed. “Come on,” Richie urged, taking Eddie’s hand on impulse as he led him down the stairs. He could feel Eddie’s pulse jackhammering in his wrist.

Backstage was deserted as they crossed the wooden floorboards. “Glamorous life you lead,” Eddie whispered as he pried his shoes off of one of the perpetually sticky spots on the floor.

“You have no idea. Some nights I opt out of the complimentary, shared bowl of stale Cheetos in the office over there and pick myself up a Big Mac instead.”

“Big spender.”

“Hey now, be nice and I’ll get you one next time.”

“Better. I’m not a cheap date.”

Eddie’s eyes were alight, the hesitation of before lost in the dim glow of backstage as they came upon the row of dressing rooms. The first one was locked, but the second one opened as Richie turned the knob, letting Eddie in first, before he entered after, flicking on the dull lights above.

A small room, function over style; hardly any function at that. Stark white walls were graffitied with black-sharpied signatures of past acts and a few lewd, stick figure drawings for added character; Richie’s scrawled name was on the far wall above the vanity’s mirror, illegible in his chicken scratch. A faded leather couch with creased holes in the arms’ upholstery sat across from the vanity. A few stools were scattered about, one upturned, and a beat-up wooden coffee table housed a basket of bottled water probably a few years old, at least.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly fancy, and maybe not even nice, but fuck, it was _here_ and _private_ , and Eddie didn’t seem to mind as he reached over Richie to close the door, locking the bolt above him.

“This alright — ”

Eddie answered in a kiss, firmer than before. The sort of leading, audacious kiss that he didn’t really have the skill to back up, but fuck if Richie cared, leaning down to meet him as Eddie pressed him against the locked door.

“You sure we haven’t met?” Eddie asked, breaking away just far enough that their lips still touched as he spoke, searching Richie’s face again like he was studying a map of a place he barely knew, somewhere from a time before.

“You hook up with lots of hot, super successful comedians?” Richie asked. “We all just blend together after a while?”

“Oh fuck off,” Eddie laughed. “I never do this.” 

“Yeah, you’d never fuck a rando in the back of a comedy club. You’re a fine, upstanding — ”

“Do you ever shut up?”

“Bet you can make me.”

Another kiss, aggressive again, and Richie relaxed into it, letting Eddie set the pace. A brush of a tongue against lips, a stifled moan that might have been his own, and Richie opened for him, hands tangling in Eddie’s styled hair as Eddie’s settled on Richie’s waist, fingers digging into his hips as if trying to sink into him.

“Past life, then,” Richie said, kissing Eddie’s ear.

They found a rhythm, a little erratic like Eddie’s very frequency. He resonated a sort of manic tempo that Richie suspected was just his base speed, or maybe he was amped up because of the inexplicable urgency of the situation — a throbbing sort of recklessness that Richie was sure Eddie must feel too, even if it made no sense at all — and Richie wanted to ride it, be swept up in the sheer need, because if he was honest, he didn’t think anyone had ever wanted him like this before.

Eddie’s hands slid under his t-shirt, and the skin on skin was overwhelming, intimate even in the midst of a kiss. His hands were damp, hot, exploratory, and they skittered across Richie’s stomach and over the thick curls below his naval; so fucking close that his cock flexed up against the zipper of his jeans seeking contact, but Eddie’s hands glided over his sides and up his back instead. Richie stooped further down, hands untangling from Eddie’s hair so that he could shrug off the suit jacket and toss it onto the coffee table. The Palm Pilot thudded down, but Eddie didn’t seem to care.

The shift was abrupt and immediate, decided in tandem without words, and together they backed away from the door, breaking the kiss while panting, so that Richie could unbutton Eddie’s collar, loosen his too-long, dated tie — he wanted to say something, make some crack about his mother dressing him, but he couldn’t manage it — and Eddie had Richie’s hoodie off, discarded at their feet without care. 

Tie off, crisp shirt unbuttoned and wrinkled at Richie’s hands, flung away despite the slight tremor in Richie’s touch — _why the fuck am I so nervous?_ — and yeah, the dude definitely hit the gym, the asshole. Trim figure but with the sort of defined obliques and abs that only a machine and more effort than Richie would ever bother with could achieve. Palm Pilot Guy could do a lot better than him, that was for sure, what with his junk food diet that only a good metabolism and youth staved off the worst effects of, but Eddie didn’t mind, judging from how he practically threw off Richie’s t-shirt, mouth on his neck as soon as they were chest to chest.

“Fuck,” Richie breathed.

What Eddie lacked in skill, he definitely made up for in enthusiasm, sucking hard into the sensitive skin above Richie’s collarbone as they moved together, entangled, across the room. Kisses hard enough to bruise, to leave behind evidence of the evening, proof that this had happened even as Richie struggled to believe it.

They landed on the couch — maybe on purpose, maybe by accident — Richie tripping clumsily onto Eddie and then climbing up him so that he straddled his thighs.

And on top of him like this, Richie felt everything, and _Jesus Christ_ , everything felt _good_. Eddie was hard, bulge obvious through tented pants, trapped at an awkward angle against Richie’s inner thigh. It was instinct to move against him, to grind down so that Eddie could feel how hard he was too — and fucking hell, Richie was so hard; his cock still wedged almost painfully against his zipper — and Eddie thrust back against him, bucking his hips up with a soft moan for more friction.

A scarlet hue was painted across Eddie’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and Richie was sure he’d never seen anyone look quite so debauched so easily, and _fuck it_ , he was gorgeous, someone straight out of his id. Fantasies long forgotten.

The ridiculousness of the whole situation hit Richie suddenly — meeting some guy _here_ of all places, and now he was grinding on him in one of the dressing rooms like they were horny fucking teenagers, but craziest of all was that his heart was beating hard as if this was some kind of culmination, some sort of fulfillment of a long-held _something_ , and not just a meaningless fuck — and Richie laughed at how insane that sounded, like something out of a cheap paperback romance, and he leaned back down to nuzzle into the crook of Eddie’s neck.

Eddie edged back, eyes sharp and wary at Richie’s laugh.

“Hey, come back,” Richie said, pulling him back to him. “This is just really unexpected that’s all. I’m not making fun,” he insisted. “I mean, this isn’t how I saw tonight going. Did you?”

Eddie relaxed a bit, smiling despite the reticence. “No, guess not.”

“So come back,” Richie whispered, more guttural than intended, and Eddie nodded, eyes dark as he captured Richie’s mouth again and his hands found the belt loops of Richie’s jeans, urging his hips back down.

Richie rocked his hips against Eddie’s, and the drag of fabric against fabric over Richie’s cock was almost too much. They’d barely started but Richie felt on edge already, hot and needy and overstimulated, his cock pulsing in time with his racing heartbeat. Eddie’s breathing — shallow, desperate gasps every time Richie pressed their bodies together — only spurred Richie on.

 _I can make him pant like that,_ and that thought was shattering.

A thrust, and then another one, and another, and Eddie was breathless under him.

Richie edged back, mouth grazing down Eddie’s chin, over his Adam’s apple and past the hollow under it. There was just a dusting of chest hair, light brown and soft, and Richie combed through it with a smile as Eddie kneed him in the thigh, impatient. 

_Impatient_. Richie knew him to be impatient; rushed, hurried, unable to calm down and just enjoy something because his mind was already ten steps ahead.

_How the fuck do I know that?_

Dark nipples in contrast to fair skin; skin Richie thought would probably tan well if he ever saw any sunlight in New York, and Richie kissed one, swirling his tongue over the already hard nub as it firmed further, Eddie bucking up below him.

“There’s no rush,” Richie teased, but his own cock disagreed, straining upwards as he continued to suck the delicate skin of Eddie’s nipple, flicking it lightly with his tongue before dragging his teeth over.

“The hell there isn’t,” Eddie swore, reaching down to the arm of Richie’s glasses. “These in the way?”

“Nah, they’re fine. Can’t see you otherwise.” 

Eddie’s hand strayed below his glasses to Richie’s cheekbone and the caress was barely-there, a flutter of butterfly wings on a breeze, a stolen moment that didn’t need to be so hidden, so unsure, and something caught in Richie’s chest at the touch, an uncanny sort of déjà vu that he couldn’t explain.

Richie sat back up on his knees, straddling Eddie, his pride only somewhat able to cover the shaking that threatened to radiate out of his whole body, and his hands grazed the fly of Eddie’s pants. “Can I?” he asked, short of breath himself.

Eddie only nodded, kicking his shoes off so they dropped off the end of the couch.

He unzipped carefully, feeling Eddie’s cock flex up under his palm as the zipper was pulled down, and Eddie sighed in relief, lifting his hips so Richie could awkwardly shimmy his pants down past his thighs, bending Eddie’s knees up to finally get the pair fully off to join the growing pile of clothes on the floor.

 _Fuck_.

Eddie was laid out under him like something out of a wet dream, naked except for a tight pair of red boxers that showed every line of his cock, hard against his pelvis; a wet patch where the head rested dampened the fabric, spreading up into the waistband.

Richie kicked off his own shoes. “It’s a fucking travesty you ever put on clothes, you know that, right?” 

“Fuck off, man.”

“No, I’m serious,” Richie said, fighting with his own zipper as he tried to avoid getting himself caught in the metal teeth. “Clothing should be illegal for people who look like you. Can Senator Edward propose a law to fix that?” A shuffle as he tugged his jeans off finally, his cock bobbing up in his boxers.

Eddie’s hands idly, curiously stroked the hair on his forearms as Richie crawled back up him, straddling him again while resting his arms on either side of Eddie’s head so that he was on all fours over him.

So close, but not nearly enough, and Eddie’s skin felt like it might envelop him, like he could jump out off of a high rock and be submerged in the blanketing embrace of him. Eddie’s breathing was like a wave, _in out in out in out,_ an unpredictable staccato that Richie just wanted to be consumed by. “Please,” Eddie whispered, low, and Richie rocked against him again.

Only thin fabric separated them now, and Richie watched transfixed as Eddie’s hips thrust up to meet every one of his movements, his cock visibly pulsing beneath the clinging cotton of his briefs. 

“Fuck,” Eddie gasped as Richie changed the angle, the head of his cock sweeping the flared underside of Eddie’s, and the wet patch spread further across the front of Eddie’s briefs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie agreed with nothing in particular, more than a little gone already at the prospect of Eddie dripping for him.

_Jesus, I need more of you._

Richie tugged at the waistband of Eddie’s briefs, but Eddie stilled, one hand coming to wrap around Richie’s wrist.

“Wait. What are we even doing?”

“Whatever the fuck you want.” It was too honest an answer, too revealing, and Eddie must have seen it.

“I never do this,” Eddie repeated.

“You’ve mentioned that.”

“I mean — ” Fathomless brown eyes darted away from Richie’s, a pronounced swallow over his Adam’s apple, and a voice so soft it was barely audible even in the relative quiet of the dressing room. “ — I never do this with _men_.”

 _Shit_.

“Oh, okay.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

_Your closet’s deeper than mine, dude._

“Well, I’m such a hottie I’ve been known to convert even the straightest — ” Eddie punched him playfully in the shoulder. “So it’s not my Hollywood good looks that won you over?” Richie pressed a kiss — lightly, more gently than he’d intended — to his lips. “We can do whatever you want, Eds,” he said again.

The name slipped out without Richie even registering what he was saying. Instinctive muscle memory that his mind didn’t recall.

A startled look unfurled across Eddie’s face at the nickname, like he’d only just thought of something, something distant, fleeting, too small or fine a memory to catch in the palm of a hand and grasp, and instead was just brushed by an outstretched fingertip.

“— don’t call me Eds,” he said automatically, and the change in him was immediate, the urgency renewed, as Eddie flipped them so Richie was pinned underneath. Richie’s surprise was short-lived, Eddie kissing it away as he maneuvered down to pull off Richie’s boxers. “Yeah?”

Richie just nodded, dazed.

Eddie was fast, a little manic, and Richie’s boxers were pulled off easily followed by Eddie’s, and the brief flash of uncertainty — a glance at Richie for direction, immediately retracted — fell to a desperate, insistent kiss as they pressed together.

Eddie moaned into the kiss, rutting against Richie at the first contact of naked skin on naked skin, and the sound he made — throaty and wanting and _perfect_ , too loud for where they were — it was a fucking miracle Richie managed to deepen the kiss to quiet him, because _fuck_ , he wanted to luxuriate in the satisfaction of those sounds. Eddie’s cock was thick and flushed, the widely flared head sticky with precum, and he dripped a viscous strand of it on Richie’s stomach as they moved together.

His kisses were demanding, magisterial, like he was starving. 

_Are you as overwhelmed by all of this as I am?_

Hands fumbled together overhead, limbs intertwined, Eddie’s cock jutted against the fleshy hollow of Richie’s inner thigh, thrusting against the cushioned skin there, and the words fell from Richie’s lips unintentionally, the fucking trash-mouthed moron that he was.

“Do you want to fuck me?”

A beat, then, “Really?”

“If you want,” Richie said. “I told you, whatever you want.”

An awkward pause, both unsure, and Richie wrapped a leg around Eddie’s waist as they kissed again, deeply, Eddie’s teeth skimming his lips.

“Yeah, okay, yeah.”

_Thank fuck. I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for this. How is that even possible?_

“I have condoms in my back pocket,” Richie said, his jeans discarded _somewhere_. “But I don’t have any lube.”

“Oh, we need that?”

“Look at you, clueless gay virgin.”

“Fuck you.” 

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

Richie untangled himself and sat up, surveying the drawers beneath the vanity before crossing the room to open the top one.

“You’re seriously going to use something from _here_?” Eddie asked, voice a little high.

The drawer was full. Old, probably expired makeup compacts, a handful of lighters, a half-empty pack of smokes, gum, several hotel-sized bars of soap, a couple of pens and a black sharpie, and —

A small jar of Vaseline, miraculously still within the use by date printed on the back label. Richie held it up to Eddie.

“How many people do you think have used that?” was the only response he received.

“Knowing the guys that perform here, absolutely zero. No one here is getting laid with any regularity.”

“It’s probably growing venereal diseases.” 

Richie popped open the lid; it looked clean enough. “It seems okay,” Richie laughed. “Come on, _Eds_.” 

It was an old pattern, a dynamic that pulled somewhere in the depths of Richie’s memory. Goading someone on, pushing and pushing and pushing, until that someone relented, and it was more ritual than anything, Richie knew. A show. An excuse. An excuse for what? Closeness? Intimacy? A way to write off the feelings that had once consumed him. And when he looked at Eddie, it seemed like the sort of dance they could have performed, this push and pull.

“I said don’t call me that.”

“It suits you.” Richie closed the jar and tossed it to Eddie before grabbing the condoms from the back pocket of his jeans.

“You just walk around with condoms?”

“Well when you’re a stud like me — ”

“Christ.”

Richie flopped back onto the couch and pulled Eddie over him again. “Well you want it, so I’ve got that going for me at least.”

Despite the protests, Eddie was still hard, cock prominent and arched against his stomach in interest as Richie wrapped his hand around the root and stroked him once than twice, grinning as Eddie’s eyes flitted shut, mouth dropping open to form a silent ‘oh.’

He felt good in his hand; slick with his own precum and responsive to Richie’s touch, twitching for him as his fingers neared the leaking tip with every stroke. And Richie would have liked to have slowed this all down, teased the impatience out of him with long, easy caresses that kept him waiting. He would have liked to have measured the tempo of Eddie’s breathing, felt how it sped up as he got closer, only for Richie to relax his grip in turn, decrease his pace, keep Eddie on the edge. He’d say something like, _patience_ , and wring out every moment of pleasure, extend it into the early hours of tomorrow.

But _fuck_ , Richie couldn’t. The impatience was catching, and he felt as though he’d waited long enough.

“Come on, help a guy out,” Richie prompted, reclining back on the couch as he opened the jar again. Hands unsteady, Eddie looked at the Vaseline, and Richie took pity, even though watching Eddie struggle with what to do was funny as hell. “Start with one finger, work your way up.”

“So I just — ”

“Here,” Richie said softly, a rush of affection overwhelming him, and he took Eddie’s palm in one hand and then scooped some of the lube out of the jar with the other, lightly coating Eddie’s pointer finger with more strokes than was strictly necessary. “Now just come here.” He guided Eddie’s hand between his legs, bending one of his knees up so that Eddie could kneel between them. “Like this,” Richie said, tracing Eddie’s finger against his hole.

Eddie’s flush had spread over his entire face, and he must have been holding his breath, his whole body impossibly still as his finger breached Richie slowly. Past the first knuckle, and then the second, and Eddie was staring at where their bodies were linked, eyes occasionally flashing up to Richie’s face as if to check to make sure he was okay, and _fuck_ , that was borderline charming, Eddie being so concerned.

“I’m not going to break, Eds.” Eddie didn’t even both correcting him on the name this time. “It’s not my first rodeo.”

Eddie only exhaled when his finger was fully inside, and he leaned over Richie to find his mouth again, trembling slightly, as he retracted his finger a little before pushing back in.

His excited energy of before gave way to a rhythm of trepidation; nervous presses forward and halting stops, a crook of his knuckle to feel the periphery, and then a gentle _in out in out in out_ as he eased Richie open. And Richie couldn’t help but watch him as they broke the kiss, because Eddie was so fucking transfixed by the whole thing that the marvel was almost contagious, as if it was Richie’s first time too.

“You can add a second,” Richie suggested, rubbing the back of Eddie’s nape.

“It won’t hurt you?”

“Told you, I’m not made of fucking glass.”

Eddie slipped out, fumbled with the Vaseline again before two unsteady fingers pressed in, sinking in easily despite the slight shake in Eddie’s wrist. His fingers were shorter than Richie’s own, finer and certainly more timid, but there was a _rightness_ to the touch, a spill of pleasure that came from them just being _his_.

“Can I go like this?” A slight scissoring motion, and that was _good_ , a hot, almost burning stretch that made Richie press back into Eddie’s hand.

“Yeah, and if you bend your fingers up a little — ”

“Like this?”

“No, the other up.”

And _Christ_ , Richie moaned, bearing down again as Eddie flicked his prostate with the tip of his finger. Eddie caught on immediately, crooking both fingers up to the same spot again, thrusting gingerly against it, as Richie moaned again, eyes shut as he brought a hand to his mouth to stifle the cry.

“Fuck, yeah, like that.”

“That’s good?” Eddie was breathless, like he was the one getting fucked, Richie thought through the haze of another starburst that seemed to crack up his very spine and into the nerves in the back of his neck.

Richie managed a broken gasp of agreement as Eddie pressed insistently against that gland, running over it with the pads of his fingers. Their lips met again, and Eddie’s kiss was distracted, torn between watching Richie’s reaction to his handiwork and kissing back; Richie left a wet kiss on his forehead as Eddie dropped his head to Richie’s shoulder to watch his fingers fuck into him again and again.

Richie adjusted his glasses — askew, a little fogged — and saw just how _gone_ Eddie was already: panting into Richie’s shoulder, breath hot and wet; cock an almost painful red against his stomach as a thick spurt of precum leaked from the tip, dripping over the flared head and onto Richie’s stomach.

“Anyone ever tell you how good you look like this?”

“You, I think —” but he was cut off by a wordless cry as Richie wrapped his hand around Eddie’s cock, squeezing and stroking up through the strands of precum that smoothed the way.

“Not so loud,” Richie laughed, and Eddie batted his hand away from his cock, which strained involuntarily upwards for more contact.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t do that — ”

“Oh, so you’re — what? — a screamer?”

“I am not.” Eddie jabbed his fingers in a little harder for emphasis, not unlike how he treated his Palm Pilot earlier in the night, and Richie only smirked.

“You seem like you might be.”

In retaliation, Eddie pulled his fingers out and sat back on his heels, one eyebrow quirked up in a _just keep pushing me_ sort of expression.

“Pouting?” Eddie shrugged nonchalantly, the effect ruined only by the twitch of his heavy cock against his stomach. “Alright, have it your way,” Richie smiled, and without so much as a second of hesitation, he scooped some more Vaseline out of the jar that lay beside him, and then slicked three fingers before pressing them into himself.

It was fine, routine; the relief came from feeling fuller than before, but his own fingers lacked the explosive intimacy of Eddie’s, that rapid-fire tempo of a pulse that wasn’t his own, one that beat hotter and faster, and to a tune that was impossibly familiar.

Exaggeratedly, Richie lay back, spreading his legs languidly, one half up on the backrest of the couch so he could show off everything as he arched up, and he watched as Eddie’s already night-dark eyes dilated further as Richie roughed up the pace, fingers pushing all the way in and then quickly out. A shift in position, a change in the angle, and Richie bit his lip to blunt the moan that threatened to spill from his mouth.

“Dude,” Eddie breathed, one hand straying to Richie’s knee to spread his legs further apart, the other cupping under Richie’s ass, his thumb caressing up against his stretched hole as Richie’s fingers fucked deeper, brushing Richie’s knuckles before they disappeared back inside.

_In._

_Out._

_In._

_Out._

It wasn’t enough. But fuck if Richie was going to cave first.

Eddie’s thumb kept glancing over his hole as his fingers thrust in, feeling the give of the puckered skin as Richie scissored himself. When he spoke, he sounded shredded, “Do you — ” a crack, a stutter, “Do you do this often?”

A shrug, like he was a little bored, like he wasn’t burning for Eddie to just turn him over and fuck him already. “Sometimes. Like what you see?”

Eddie’s cock dragged against Richie’s bent leg, leaving trails of precum on his skin. “You’re so annoying, you know that, right?” he said as if he wasn’t rubbing off on Richie’s leg.

“I think you like it.”

“Fuck, come on, let me — ”

Another kiss, and Eddie was desperate, possessive, kissing him with an abandon bordering on crazy. A scrape of teeth against Richie’s tongue, a nip of his lower lip, and one of Eddie’s hands grasped the back of Richie’s head, fingers twining in his hair, keeping them close together as his other hand urged Richie’s fingers out.

“Where’s the condom?”

“I think I’m on it. Just wait a sec.”

Richie ripped open the packet, never more thankful of the overconfidence that spurred him to keep one on him, even though it was almost always unnecessary. “Come here,” Richie said, but there really wasn’t any way they could be closer together; Eddie kissed him again as Richie rolled the condom on, stroking more lube over him.

“I won't hurt you?”

“No, Prince Charming.” Then gentler, “Come on, Eds.”

Richie laid back, pulling Eddie with him. He extended a leg over Eddie’s shoulder, the length of it seeming exaggerated over Eddie’s smaller frame, and Eddie scooted nearer, lifting Richie’s ass up so he could lean fully against him, supported by his knees and one arm, as his other hand stayed cupping Richie’s ass.

“Okay?”

A nod, a kiss, and an out-of-place, stray thought about being tangled up with someone in a hammock.

A tentative push, not nearly enough to breach him; Eddie’s cock pressed against Richie’s hole, and then rubbed up into the perineum. Another hesitant rock forward, and finally —

 _Fuck_.

It was slow going as Eddie inched inside, full and warm and visceral, sparking impulses so deep-seated that Richie was sure he’d never felt before. It was an inherently intimate act, obviously, but this was something else altogether. Elemental, almost. Formidable.

Above him, Eddie’s breath hitched as he bottomed out, leaning down momentarily to rest his head on Richie’s shoulder. “It’s okay? I didn’t hurt you?”

“Gotta knock it off with that,” and Eddie finally did knock it off, easing his hips back so he slid only an inch or two out, before gliding back in evenly. A little further out with the next thrust, and then again with the next, and _fuck that’s it_ , they found a relaxed rhythm that was more of gentle grind than actual fucking, but _it was good_.

God, Richie was hard. Cock bouncing against his naval with each of Eddie’s thrusts, his balls were already drawn tight, heavy and fucking full just looking at how fucking amazing Eddie was over him; beads of sweat on his forehead, and Richie just wanted to wipe them away in some sentimental bullshit type gesture, and so _fuck it_ , he did, realizing as he caressed Eddie’s forehead that his own palms were so sweaty that it made little difference.

“Is it crazy that I feel like I’ve wanted this before?” Eddie babbled.

“No, man, that’s just called being a gay motherfucker.”

“No, I mean, like I wanted _this_. Fuck, I can’t explain it.”

He didn’t have to. Richie felt it too, and couldn’t possibly put it to words. It was a sort of foundational longing, born of years of want, no, need; a ravenous pining thing that shaped a person into being, wrote on the tenets of who that person was, definitional. But that was impossible, crazy thinking; romanticized drivel that existed far away from some hookup with a guy he’d wanted for all of an hour at most.

Eddie fucked into him, harder now, desperation rendered physical. A jerk of hips and their mouths crashed together again, almost violent in need as Eddie’s nails dug into Richie’s ass, keeping his hips tilted upwards.

“Wait, just let me.” Richie pivoted his hips, canting them up to meet each thrust, and _there there there_ , fucking fireworks, an explosion of already frayed nerve endings as Eddie found that sensitive nub with his cock this time, and Richie keened up, almost shouting.

“And you said I was loud.”

He had to be quiet, Richie knew. The other side of the door could have masked anyone; backstage was just down the hall, and Richie couldn’t come face to face with the guys if they knew. But fucking hell it was hard to care about any of that when Eddie was fucking into him like that — an almost brutal pace now — and the head of Eddie’s cock bumping his prostate with every movement. He fucked like someone hungry for it, hungry for _him_ , and that thought alone almost sent him over the edge; that Eddie could want him with the same intensity that Richie wanted him back.

Eddie sat back on his heels without breaking the rhythm, freeing another hand to graze Richie’s spread thighs. An unspoken question communicated with just a brush of a hand up the thigh — _can I?_ — and Richie pushed his hips up in assent, shifting his leg still bent over Eddie’s shoulder.

His fingers were smaller than Richie was used to, but they were far from delicate around his cock; firm, grounding pressure, and Eddie stroked him in time with his thrusts, his cock inside of Richie sending flares of a pleasure so intense it almost bordered on _too much, too much_ , while Eddie’s hand thumbed over his head.

Battered between two competing sensations, Richie rocked his hips forward and back, unable to do little more than take it, to be devastated by this overwhelming, consuming feeling. Like drowning, maybe, being pulled under by a strong current, and no amount of swimming against it would change his course. But Eddie was an anchor, someone to cling to.

It was as if he understood, and Eddie leaned back down, unhooking Richie’s leg from his shoulder and then bracing himself with one arm on the armrest behind Richie’s head to close the gap between them. Richie clung to his shoulders, wrapped his arms around annoyingly gym-toned deltoids and pressed their foreheads together. There was no kissing, just closeness, a reassuring comfort that was at once romantic but also thoroughly familial; the sort of easy companionship born of years they hadn’t spent together. _I’ve got you_ didn’t need to be said.

Eddie’s hold around him tightened, squeezing the base of his cock and stroking up in an increasingly disjointed rhythm that matched the erratic pulse of his hips.

“Richie, Richie, Richie,” Eddie panted into his ear.

The sound of his name on those perfect lips; the frequency with which he pronounced it — the pitch, the cadence, like he’d said it before a million times, and how Richie would give anything to hear it a million times after — that was everything, and it was his undoing.

The pleasure of it was a wave, rolling over him as his body clenched up and his stomach tightened, and he was swept up, swept away, and it was only Eddie who kept him moored as his hips bucked up and his vision almost whited out; Eddie still anchoring him in place with his breathing of “Richie, Richie, Richie,” as he tensed above him too.

(Not a wave like something from an immeasurable, anonymous ocean; no, a man-made current, small-scale and personal. The sort of wave caused when two people jump into a lake together, or a pond, a river, a quarry, and the displacement of water is so much that all you can do is cling to the person you jumped with, find their hand beneath the depths and swim to the surface together.)

Eddie was half-collapsed on top of him, his breath evening out in hot puffs against Richie’s shoulder.

Their eyes met and it almost hurt to look at him. Richie felt exposed and embarrassed, like Eddie had seen past every wall he put in front of him to his very core, like he must sense how wildly Richie’s heart was beating, not because of the sex but because of _him_.

“Not the worst way to spend an evening,” Richie said, filling the silence that threatened to eat him whole.

“Acceptable,” Eddie smiled, and so Richie smiled too.

And it was easier than it should have been — that post-sex awkwardness that Richie knew well from previous encounters — and they disentangled themselves from one another. Eddie grappled with his shirt buttons while Richie zipped his pants, and later Richie looked over at Eddie tying his tie and he thought _UCLA is a good school, you could stay here_. But that wasn’t the sort of thinking that went with hookups, so instead he said, “So you in town for much longer?”

“Fly out tomorrow.”

Richie ignored the sinking in his stomach. “I’ll try not to be too disappointed.” _Big smile, no hurt here, bravado bullshit_.

“This was — " Eddie started.

 _This_ was familiar too; not just Eddie, but parting with him. The separation, the hollow feeling of _what will I do without you_? It seemed recursive, like they’d done it before, and now too, and would again. Cyclical.

_Beep beep beep._

Eddie retrieved a compact Motorola from his pocket and glanced at the little display on the inside of the clamshell before toggling it off and putting it back in his jacket.

“Just my — ”

“Girlfriend?” Richie offered, knowingly.

“ — yeah.”

“New York?”

“Yeah, she’s in nursing at NYU.”

“And that’s why you’re staying at Columbia?”

“Good listener for a guy looking to pick up dudes at a bar.”

“I pay attention when people are interesting.”

“Look, I should apologize.”

“You don’t have to. It’s not like this was — ” _special, inexplicably significant, revelatory,_ “ — anything serious.” Richie shrugged, forcing an easy smile that Eddie must have seen through, surely, Richie knew.

“She’s a good person,” Eddie offered, looking like he wanted to explain more, to put forward some sort of defence or reason, but he didn’t elaborate.

Richie watched as Eddie fidgeted with his hands, a familiar strumming motion that Richie could have unconsciously duplicated. “So if you’re staying in New York for your girlfriend, why’d you fly across the country to check out a school you never planned on attending?” 

A long exhale, then, “Just wanted to see what else was out there,” Eddie said. “Sometimes it feels like something’s missing, you know? I don’t even know what it is. You ever feel like that? Like you’ve forgotten something so important and if you could only just remember — ”

“Everything would get easier? Yeah, sometimes.” It was the moment to say something, for some grand, romantic speech, but Richie had no more words left aside from, “I hope you find it.”

The kiss was hardly more than a peck, a brief glance of a thing; lips brushing lips, something casual, like a have-a-good-day-I’ll-see-tonight-at-dinner token. Nothing momentous or passionate, not a goodbye of parting lovers, not a we’ll-never-see-each-other-again movie kiss where the music swells and the wind machines are turned on and the two leads clutch each other in frantic desperation.

Just a touch of lips. 

And even though it hurt to look at him, Richie wanted to memorize the striations of Eddie’s remarkable eyes, but it was as if he already had. He knew precisely where the flecks of amber bled into the honey and the russet; he could anticipate the exact hue of the chestnut as it protected his pupils. But no matter how flawlessly ingrained in his mind, the memory of them would never be enough.

_What can I keep of you if not your eyes?_

“Here.” Richie darted back to the vanity and plowed through the open drawer again, producing the black sharpie. “You should sign your name.”

Eddie bit, like Richie knew he would. “And here I was thinking this was all people who performed here, not just your — ” he raised an eyebrow, searching for the right word.

“Fucks?” Richie suggested. “Or would you feel better about yourself if we called it — I don’t know — trysts, indiscretions, rendezvous?”

Eddie smirked and took the sharpie, signing a blank piece of wall behind the door with a flourish.

_Eds._

“Much better than Edward.”

“See you, Richie,” Eddie said, both of them knowing that wouldn’t happen.

*

_Derry, 2016_

Richie followed Bev and Ben into the Jade, not sure what to expect from this out-of-nowhere, strange-as-hell, mindfucky dinner invite to a place he only remembered existed two days ago.

 _Oh_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Slide_ by The Goo Goo Dolls.
> 
> Talk to me on [Tumblr](https://spunknbite.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/spunknbite).


End file.
